


Delicate Affection (Oh my god, they were teammates)

by Sophisticated_Adult



Category: Seiken Densetsu 3, Trials of Mana
Genre: Gen, I'm making SD3 gay and you can't stop me, M/M, Pre-Slash, Slow Burn, but he is trying his best, like 'Duran isn't going to figure this out until the post-post-post game' slow burn, this boy is not smart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23620582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophisticated_Adult/pseuds/Sophisticated_Adult
Summary: A solid brick wall with one brain cell and it wants to fight you plus the cool clever thief who is definitely into the ladies, am I right, haha, anyway I ship it so here is something that I might add later scenes on to because I'm hype for the remake. A small writeup of the meetup scene outside the Cave of Waterfalls.Update: We made it to Wendel, and I have at least one scene I'm super excited to get to so watch this space
Relationships: Hawk/Duran
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	1. Few Paths Forbidden

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: I have not, at time of posting, actually played the Trials of Mana demo just yet. I initially wrote this after the first trailers dropped, never posted it, and decided to polish it up a bit and post before I played it as a sort of time capsule, I guess? This is however remake!Duran because that character design is apparently All Of My Buttons for 'this is now my gay disaster son and I love him' (also he's trans) (it doesn't come up here but he's trans) (deal with it)

Duran took slow, cautious steps on the wet, slippery grass, not wanting to take a tumble into the waters below, however shallow they looked. He'd slipped a little his first time here, before he'd been repelled by the invisible barrier at the cave entrance, and he was warier of his surroundings now. The darkness didn't help either, giving him little warning if he was about to walk face-first into a cold shock of spray. If nothing else, the Cave of Waterfalls was well named.

“Hey, is someone there?” An unfamiliar voice called out, almost right in front of him, and Duran froze. A man; it didn't have the gravelly sound of the few Beastmen he'd run into in Jad, but that hardly meant this wasn't an enemy. He gripped the hilt of his father's sword and took another careful step forward, silently thankful that he'd chosen to dress in lighter armour than the full gear of most Forcenan knights – less clanking to give him away, lighter on his feet – it had given him an unintentional advantage back in training and in the tournaments. Not that that slight advantage seemed to help much, as the stranger spoke again:

“Well, if you're heading to Wendel, it's bad news, buddy. There's some kinda barrier in the way. Been sat here trying to figure out a way past, but no dice. Maybe you've got an idea?” The hopeful note at the end of that sentence was what finally caused Duran to leave his sword at his side. Now he thought about it, the voice wasn't totally unfamiliar.

“We met before, right? In Jad?” Grateful for the overhang protecting him from the waterfall thundering past, Duran finally was close enough to confirm what he'd just figured out; it was the same white-haired man he'd briefly spoken to in one of the buildings, who'd despaired at the state of the world. 

“Hey, yeah, I think so!” The man said, now cheerful as he looked Duran up and down. “You're a hard guy to forget. Love the hair. Name's Hawk, noble thief of Navarre – hey, don't look at me like that, it's a long story...”

“We don't really have time for this.” The Fairy popped out without warning and without a care in the world about the stranger right in front of them, whose casual look-at-me-I'm-the-coolest-guy-in-the-room demeanour was suddenly thrown off if his widened eyes was anything to go by.

“Holy shit, what the hell-” 

“A barrier, you said?” the tiny creature continued, ignoring Hawk completely as she flitted towards the cave entrance. “That should be no problem. Here, let me just...” 

A few seconds and some sparkly light later, and then: “Done!” she said cheerily, “We should be good to go! On to Wendel, on the double!” 

“All right, all right,” Duran grumbled, still not used to the way she faded out of existence, but he could still feel her presence inside his head. Focused now only on his mission, he began to stride -

“Hey, wait!” The thief, Hawk, hurried forwards, taking light steps to catch up and dance in front of him, forcing Duran to stop unless he wanted to bowl both of them over into wet grass. “You really going to Wendel? Hey, me too!” Hawk gave a big, expressive gesture that ended in a bow. Unsure what to make of it, Duran didn't comment. “Got business with the Priest of Light, myself. Why not team up? Two's better than one, at least against the monsters in this cave.”

Duran was ready to push past him with a scowl for wasting precious time, but that last comment made him pause.

“Okay,” Duran nodded. “Just don't get in my way.” 

Hawk's smirk was a flash in the dark. “Buddy, if I were slow enough to be in your way I'd retire of old age.” He waltzed forward before Duran could say anything, giving a first glimpse of the long ponytail that trailed behind his back and down to his feet. “Hey, does that little lady of yours I saw just now have a name?”

“She's a fairy,” Duran said, trudging behind his new teammate and wondering at the choices in his life that had lead him to this point. 

“Yeah, I saw.”

“She's staying with me until we get to the Priest of Light, then we're parting ways. _All_ of us,” he added, in case the thief didn't get the hint. Hawk just chuckled, hands jauntily clasped behind his head.

At least the monsters would be a welcome distraction from his new companion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've never heard of this game before and you're only here through clicking through my fics, hi hello you are wonderful, also the demo for the remake, Trials of Mana, is free on Steam and on Switch so please give it a try, I adore the original and aside from some janky English voice acting (which you can change to Japanese with subtitles) and Very Questionable Decisions re: one character's baby-talk speech pattern (who you can mostly ignore if you don't have her in your party once you're through her cutscenes) the remake looks legit as all hell. Let me know if you give it a try!


	2. Evening Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: still haven't played ToM yet because I'm not ready lmao (current deepest wish: please still have one of Duran's idles being him messing with his hair it's literally all that I ask)
> 
> this is basically going fully off my personal memories and nostalgia at this point (and if you haven't noticed yet, I am using the 1999 fan translation versions of the names. this fic stands in solidarity with people who still use Aeris instead of Aerith, keep fighting that good fight)
> 
> I've got nothing against the canon localised names or people who use them and I'm well aware I'm likely going to be part of a rapidly dwindling part of the fandom. 'S all good. It's just what I'm used to, y'know?
> 
> Anyway here's my disaster boys for some amount of words.

They cut a path through the cave without incident (well, they'd rescued a small annoying little girl who'd proclaimed herself to be the granddaughter of the Priest of Light and then run off, but the less said about that the better). Although Duran wasn't ready to admit it just yet, having a partner at his back had made things much easier with some of the more irritating monsters, like the nimble bats that were a chore for him to try to strike at but Hawk could snipe from across the room with one of his daggers. Not too bad, all in all.

Nothing he'd say out loud, though. If he wanted to be strong enough to take down the Crimson Wizard, he couldn't rely on others to let him coast through his fights. 

Which brought him to the present; the Holy City of Wendel, where their goal lay across the quaint little town overshadowed by the massive Temple where the Priest of Light's visitors travelled to from all over the world. Them included, he supposed.

“Don't steal anything,” Duran warned, even as he appreciated the feeling of cobblestones and grass under his feet and bright sunshine overhead instead of dank cave dirt and oppressive shadows. Hawk laughed.

“Hey, man, what do you take me for? I steal from the bastards who deserve it,” Hawk proclaimed, striking a pose right there in the middle of the street; some onlooking girls giggled as they walked by. “Besides, ordinary people like you and me usually don't have anything worth taking anyway.” Hawk shrugged. “If there's some rich merchant here, though, I can't say I can promise anything.” 

Duran grit his teeth. He'd wanted to check out the shops for gear and items, and particularly the inn if it had a shower because right now it was the thing he wanted most in the world – seriously he could swear there was some slime or something from the monsters caught in his hair and he felt gross and didn't want to just walk up to the Priest of Light like this – but the sooner he and Hawk parted ways, the sooner he'd wash his hands of any trouble for himself when the thief inevitably did something stupid and got in over his head. Noble thief? Yeah, right. No such thing.

“Let's just get this over with,” Duran said, jerking his head in the direction of the Temple of Light. “We're wasting time here.”

“Yeah, let's go.” Hawk agreed easily enough, but it was like a flipped switch from casual and easygoing (even teasing, Duran suspected) to Serious Mode, his brown eyes hardening. “This is important, after all.”

At least they could agree on something.

\---

One visit to the Priest of Light later, Duran was less than pleased.

Not only was he stuck with the Fairy – for _life_ , it turned out, woulda been nice to at least have a warning before she'd decided to live in his head – but his plans of ditching Hawk at the first opportunity had fallen through. The advice for their different situations had been the same, and now their goals were aligned: find and obtain the help of the eight elemental mana spirits, use their combined powers to unlock the realm of the Mana Holyland, find the sleeping Mana Sword, and use it to call the Goddess of Mana for their wishes to be granted.

In the candlelit Temple of Light, surrounded by imagery of the Goddess and with the Fairy's encouragement, it had sounded – well, not insane.

Back outside in the light of day, though, it didn't sound quite so easy, so obvious, as the Priest of Light had made it seem.

In addition to that, in the Inner Chamber, Hawk had shoved Duran aside to get his audience with the Priest, launching into his story while Duran scowled and folded his arms. As he continued, though, something small and traitorous had settled in Duran's mind that he couldn't quite shake. 

Hawk was on this grand journey to free his entire nation from the corruption and brainwashing of an evil usurper, and to free a dear friend from a terrible curse that put her very life in danger.

Duran? 

He wanted to get stronger so that he could kill a wizard.

A wizard that had killed his friends, yes, that put risk to the citizenry of Forcena every day he drew breath, but - 

\- but there was no denying the driving need to _eradicate_ him and everything Duran associated with him that went well beyond mere revenge.

In the aftermath of the attack, he'd hated how people had treated him. Like a glass doll, something to be pitied. People he'd known his whole life had, had _looked_ at him, and – 

It shouldn't be him. The family of those who'd died that night, they deserved the sympathy and pity. He could practically feel his skin crawling as he walked the streets, like an alien in his own town. Like everything had changed.

He never wanted to feel like that again.

But he couldn't put that into words; all that had come out to the Priest of Light, to Hawk, was: “I want to become powerful enough to defeat the wizard who humiliated me.”

...

Ugh. Enough of this. He felt stupid and small, but at least he could check the inn and that shower he'd been wanting.

\---

Joy of joys, there was indeed a shower for guest use at the creatively named Wendel Inn. Duran claimed it first, not even bothering to argue with Hawk and closing the door on the thief's face before he could even say anything. For all that it was a rudimentary wooden pulley system, nothing like what he was used to in the barracks in Forcena, hot water was still hot water and it felt heavenly after the cold cave damp they'd made their way through.

The soap was basic too, an unassuming solid chunk – back home they'd been experimenting with a newly-invented kind of liquid soap and Duran found it was much, much nicer than he'd thought, now that he was faced with the old stuff – who knew _what_ had touched it before he got here.

Still, beggars couldn't be choosers and he hadn't had a proper shower in at least a week and dear Goddess he was never taking one for granted again.

He'd finished and was starting to get dressed, only just having got the binders back on and making a face in distaste at the ever-present reminder when the door started to open. His eyes widened; only a second later he was nearly in full panic mode, moving almost on pure instinct before Hawk even spoke: 

“Hey, man, you done in here? I really gotta clean these-”

“Get OUT!” Duran yelled, already diving back into the shower, grabbing the towel from the floor for good measure and yanking the cloth screen back forcefully, nearly pulling it off its pegs in the process.

“Whoa, whoa,” Hawk's voice reached him, startled, and Duran could feel his face burning at the overreaction – but it had been so goddamn long since he'd had to deal with this crap he'd nearly forgotten, and he'd seen the way Hawk acted around the pretty girls in town, and, and - !

“Just get _out_ ,” Duran hissed, pulling the towel around himself, wet hair in his eyes, about two seconds from humiliation re-tooling itself into anger and none of them needed to deal with that right now - 

“Okay, okay, shoulda said somethn' if this was a big deal for you, geez, sorry.” The door closed. Duran waited nearly a full minute, still clutching the towel around his body in a near deathgrip, before he could bring himself to move and peek around the screen.

The room was empty, the door shut.

He'd fucking _forgotten to lock it_. He was so used to just – being able to exist, in Forcena, and he'd been so focused, it hadn't even crossed his mind.

Shit. Shit shit _shit_. This had to be payback; he had it too good back home, where he knew everyone and everyone knew him and he'd started (and won) enough fights in his childhood that no-one in Forcena would even question that of course Duran was a guy.

This wasn't Forcena. This was the outside world, and he did _not_ need to deal with this on top of everything else. Scowling, Duran pulled the rest of his clothes on quickly, wanting to get the fuck out of this room as soon as possible, and stormed past Hawk in the hallway, not even stopping for the “Hey-” as the thief pushed himself from the wall he'd been leaning against.

Fuck that. Duran was _not_ dealing with that. He stomped his way to their room and flung himself onto one of the beds, fuck, he'd just gotten himself worked up again - 

“Um.” A voice spoke up, but it didn't have the echoing reverb it did in his head, so Duran looked up to glare at the Fairy, who'd appeared hovering over the other bed.

“What?” He said, but at least the heat hadn't reached his face this time. “Got somethin' to say?”

“I – maybe this isn't the best time – no! I have to say – I thought it was strange – you, I mean!” Seeing her trip up over every sentence, Duran decided to at least wait her out before he got mad, let her say something stupid on her own, but she was on thin ice as far as he was concerned.

“Sorry. Let me start again. But...it just seems so strange.” 

“Alright, I get it, I'm a weirdo,” Duran scowled, jerking himself around to face the other wall. Hawk was bad enough, but if he had this shit in his own head for the rest of his damn life - 

“No!” The Fairy's tiny, piping voice insisted, and something in the you're-not- _listening_ tone got through to him – he'd used it enough himself, back in the day, so he turned cautiously around.

“What I meant was – it seems strange that the Goddess would make a mistake like this,” the Fairy explained, wings on her back whirring. (Did she even need those? Only just now he was starting to wonder about stuff like that).

 _“Mistake?”_ Duran repeated, but he was too fucking tired, this time, to be angry. He'd burned himself out earlier, so he thunked his head against the pillow and gave her a chance to explain.

“Yes, I mean, you _are_ a man, I never even questioned it when I first met you, but this – well – this is _different_ , isn't it?” 

Duran sighed. He could cope with 'different', at least.

“Yeah,” he mumbled into the pillow. “Shit sucks, but what can you do?”

“I wonder,” the Fairy mused. “When we find the Mana Sword and awaken the Goddess once more, I – well, I don't know if she'll listen to a lowly subject like myself, but I'll make an appeal on your behalf, Duran, so you can still make your original wish, but I'll ask her if, perhaps, she can right this. I wonder if it's because of the mana disappearing...?” She had turned away and was muttering to herself, lost in her own world, and didn't see Duran staring at her.

He hadn't even thought of that. “Thanks,” he said quietly, feeling a new appreciation for her.

Maybe she wasn't such an annoyance after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me having not played ToM at all yet and trying to mash together OG jerk-with-a-temper Duran + round faced fashion disaster trying to be marketable to a modern 2020 audience as the basic default face of the game Duran: yes this will definitely work, no flaws in this plan, no sir


End file.
